Xbox 360 games to be installable on to hard drive

Microsoft has announced it will let you install Xbox 360 games onto you hard drive.

The news was broken by Xbox Live boss Marc Whitten on Xbox's Major Nelson blog , stating it should improve load time and reduce DVD drive noise. To verify you actually own the game though, you'll still have to have the game in the disc drive, just in case any of you sneaky gamer's try to install your mate's copy.

There will also be an in-game dashboard that will allow you to access every feature and option "no matter where you are", and new display modes including 16:10 over VGA or HDMI, plus 1440x900 and 1680x1050.

And if all that wasn't enough for you, Microsoft is now letting us brows and buy Live Marketplace content from the Xbox website via our PCs so you'll be able to pick something to download and leave it doing so while you go off and something else.

Whitten also expanded on the Live Party system that was announced at Microsoft's E3 press brieifing. This is where you can specify a group of seven people that you move from game to game - or movie - with. You can chat in the dashboard before playing or watching and it's supposed to work with all Xbox games.

"Because of your feedback, we started rethinking the entire Xbox experience," said Whitten. "What we discovered was that we could not only provide a better experience for you, but also something that reaches out to new audiences."